


in just one little frame

by shipyrds



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Domesticity, F/F, Fluff, post-SiH, really just absolute poly domesticity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:21:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22309327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipyrds/pseuds/shipyrds
Summary: Hella wakes late, jolting awake in a bed that still feels too soft, even after all this time. Downstairs, she can hear Adaire and Adelaide bickering in the kitchen. Outside her window, she can see Rix and Rowe chasing Barbello around the branches of the house, shrieking with laughter as he pops in and out of visibility.A soft morning with the best girls.
Relationships: Adaire Ducarte/Adelaide Tristé/Hella Varal
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9
Collections: Secret Samol 2019





	in just one little frame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [khachirkhel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/khachirkhel/gifts).



Hella wakes late, jolting awake in a bed that still feels too soft, even after all this time. Usually she wakes before anyone else, going outside to exercise before beginning her day. 

Downstairs, she can hear Adaire and Adelaide bickering in the kitchen. Outside her window, she can see Rix and Rowe chasing Barbello around the branches of the house, shrieking with laughter as he pops in and out of visibility. 

She stretches, pulling on a loose robe and padding downstairs. A knife flies straight at her as she enters the kitchen, and she snatches it from the air. No matter how quiet she tries to be on the stairs, Adaire can always hear her coming. 

“What the hell, Adaire?” she asks, tossing the knife down on the counter. 

“We’re having hash. I need help with the onions,” Adaire says, not looking up from where she’s peering at a cookbook filled with Emmanuel’s crabbed writing. 

“You shouldn’t have given her a weapon,” Adelaide says, smiling over the rim of a cup of tea from where she’s perched on the counter. “Good morning, dear,” she says, and Hella leans in to kiss her, one hand still on the chef’s knife. “Water’s hot.”

“I notice you didn’t ask before taking _my_ tea,” Hella gripes, but she leaves the knife on the counter and takes the kettle off the fire. She finds the ritual of it soothing, rinsing the leaves, then mixing them and letting them steep just long enough. She’s too impatient to wait for the second steep, though, and drinks the tea as soon as the leaves bloom in the bottom of her cup. The warmth helps her hands, too, which have started to ache in the mornings. 

“All right,” she says, when she’s finished her first cup. “What do you need done with the onions?” She wraps her arms around Adaire’s waist.

“Not helpful,” Adaire says, but she leans back into the embrace and kisses Hella’s cheek. “Just a dice, please. I need to check on the scone dough.”

Hella picks up the knife and loses herself in the easy rhythm of peeling and dicing. She wrinkles her nose, blinking back tears as the onions reach her nose. “Why do you give me the worst jobs?” she complains.

“Because I love you and your big strong arms,” Adaire says. Hella looks over, finished with the onions, and watches Adaire pull the dough from the icebox. A wisp of hair creeps out from under her kerchief, curling in the warmth of the kitchen. There’s a smudge of flour across her cheek, and she’s rolled up her sleeves the way she only does around family. Hella feels fondness rise painful in her chest and bustles over to the kettle again to have something to do with herself. 

Adelaide smirks at her as she goes, and Hella pulls a face. As if Adelaide hadn’t arrived at their door for dinner last night and spent half the evening gazing at Adaire in the firelight. 

Adelaide, who wears her love extravagantly, draping and luxuriant, has trouble understanding why the two of them still sometimes act as though they’re stealing time together. “Why can’t you two just let each other have what you both want?” she’d asked, last night, after catching Adaire and Hella glancing at each other. “Haven’t we all waited long enough?” 

Hella hadn’t known how to explain to her that loving Adaire feels more dangerous than loving the literal goddess of death, that life with them both, even after all these years, seems like something her hands are too rough to hold. Adelaide is part of her; they are bound together as much by the years Adelaide spent immersed in the innermost parts of her as by the vows they made to each other. But Adaire had always been someone Hella had fought for– fought to protect, fought to keep. It was hard to lay down her sword, after so much time with it always at the ready. But Adaire had chosen her, too; Adaire chooses her (miraculously, cheerfully, laughingly) every day. 

“Do you ever feel like we don’t deserve this?” she asks, bringing the kettle to top off Adelaide’s cup. 

“No,” Adelaide says. “I don’t.” She looks at Hella, a long steady gaze more suited to her throne room than to their comfortable kitchen. “I don’t think life, especially now–” and she gestures outside at the changed world blooming all around them– “is about deserving things,” she says. “Things happen, and then you make the best of them. You taught me that.” 

Across the kitchen, Adaire has cut the scones and puts them in the oven, where the coals are glowing. “What are you two whispering about?” she says. The kitchen smells of oranges, bright and bursting. 

“I love you,” Hella says, helplessly, her hands curled around her teacup. She sets it down and holds out a hand to pull Adaire in. Adaire’s hands are floury, a few bits of dough caked into her cuticles. She tastes like cranberries when Hella kisses her. 

Adelaide rests her chin on Hella’s shoulder, angling for a kiss as well, and Adaire obliges. “You’re sappy this morning,” Adaire says, pulling back from Adelaide to look at Hella. Her cheeks are flushed, and she smiles. “Now help me grate the potatoes, will you? I’m hungry.” 

Hella follows her to where Adaire has two graters and a great heap of potatoes waiting. “Of course,” she says. 

Sunlight streams in through the windows, throwing broad streaks of light across the kitchen table. Hella watches Adaire’s hands as she works, clever even in this mundane task. Across the kitchen, Adelaide drums her heels on the cabinets, humming some ancient tune under her breath. Hella smiles at her, and she tosses an orange segment into her mouth and blows them both a kiss. 

“I love you too, you know,” Adaire says, pausing halfway through a potato. 

Hella feels a grin break out on her face. “I know,” she says. “Or– I’m remembering.”

**Author's Note:**

> Your prompts were so good I had to fill two of them. This one is short and sweet– but I love these characters so much and I just want them to be happy. 
> 
> Title is from The Suffers' "Make Some Room," which is really the absolute morning cooking song. Also, of course Adaire is making [Katie Diek's delicious Marielda scones.](https://twitter.com/KatieDiek/status/939684069486530560?s=20)


End file.
